Indonesian Adventures
Here we are. The faithful crew of s/v Bahati reporting from the island of Lombok in the Nusa Tengarra region of eastern Indonesia. A little more then a week ago, Josh and Maria joined Captain Biscuits, arriving from the San Francisco Bay Area for their long-awaited three week vacation. Bahati was anchored in a pseudo-industrial port off the island of Pulau Serangan in southern Bali. For five days the crew explored the madness of Bali, with the dueling task of preparing the boat to explore the outer islands and visiting some Balinese cultural sites along the way. We navigated endless traffic clogged chaos, moving from beaches to grocery stores, and visiting temple after temple, with the Muslim call-to-prayer echoing out from the mosques at the end of Ramadan. We rented a jeep for two days to ease our provisioning and enable our visits to a couple of more remote temples, including Pura Tanah Lot, built centuries ago, over the peeling surf on Bali's west coast (pictures coming once we get to internet!).


Escaping Bali Madness
A week ago, fed-up with the madness of city life, we set sail for the outer islands of the Nusa Tengarra region. Joined by our German friend Oliver, (who lives on Bali and will join Nat to sail up to Thailand next month), we had an exciting sail out to the nearby island of Nusa Lembongan fighting all sorts of unexplained currents with eddies boiling around us, and moored there just outside the lineup at one of the local surf breaks. The first evening at Lembongan was calm. Josh paddled into the break surfing small lefthand waves peeling over the reef. As the sunset, Maria did yoga on a nearby floating platform, Josh went to source fresh fish from the local fishermen in on the beach, and Captain Biscuits and Oliver put the boat to bed. All this with Bali's massive volcano, Gunung Agung in the background. A lovely sunset provided epic scenery for our first night out. After dinner we turned in for a good night sleep to the gentle rocking of the sea, but at about 1am the tide shifted, and the anchorage got pretty uncomfortable and little sleep was had. The next morning called for Biscuits and Josh to scrub Bahati's bottom, getting off all the slime that had built up in Bali's urban harbor. More surfing was had and Biscuits and Oliver tended to tasks around the boat. Maria and Josh went ashore to find a bungalow for the night (Maria's back, with two herniated discs, was in rough shape after the fitful night, and Josh had a bit of sun-stroke from all the surfing!)

Part way into the night, the wind shifted into the north waking the captain, a new swell arrived and the surf breaks turned on in grand form. Two of the adjascent breaks, "Playgrounds" and "Lacerations", were firing double-overhead with huge barrels peeling over the reef... the only problem was that Bahati's position was now quite compromised as Playgrounds was breaking much further out then the previous day, and as the swell built Bahati was pretty much in the take off zone just waiting for an outside set to break over her with all the power of the southern ocean swells. Biscuits sat up for much of the night monitoring the situation and judging whether to drop the mooring and leave. The situation was not so simple, as Oliver needed to catch the ferry back to Bali in the morning to get back for work, and Maria and Josh were sleeping ashore... what a predicament! Things were just safe enough to stay through the night, but with daybreak surfers paddled out and started catching waves JUST inside Bahati. The captain leaped into action, launched the dingy, shot into shore to drop Oliver and snatch Maria and Josh. The swell was still building, so we immediately fired up the engine, dropped the mooring, and took off to an outer mooring where we madly prepped the boat for sea while watching the surf breaks just inside us fire with amazing intensity. Wow. What a frightening scene!!!! And really our first taste of what amazing surf Indonesia has to offer. We sailed away toward Lombok much relieved!


Sailing to Lombok
From Nusa Lembongan we had a beautiful sail across the Lombok Strait. About halfway across the strait we started to notice colorful sails scattered across the horizon. As we sailed on, a virtual army of small local fishing boats crossing the straits under sail whizzed by us. As far as the eye could see were more and more of these handmade outrigger boats, each with one man aboard, and each with a brilliantly colored sail, many barely holding together pulling their vessels fast downwind. There must have been hundreds of these boats. As one can imagine there was much spectulation between the three of us aboard Bahati about the reason for this mass exodus from Lombok... Was it a fisherman's festival? Were the Lombok fishermen trying to conquor Bali as the Balinese had done to Lombok a century or two earlier? Was there a tsunami coming, and if so where we the women and children? ... The spectulation continues, but as we've spent more time around Lombok we see that the fishermen all go out and return from their trade at the same time every day, so perhaps this was just a normal routine.

After a beautiful day of sailing (Maria's first REAL sailing experience) Lombok's mountainous landscape came into view, with the crew in awe. Beautiful craggy mountains pouring into the sea with white palm-fringed beaches at their feet. As we neared land we got an amazing view of the surf break off Desert Point, a long barreling lefthand point break that is widely considered to be possibly "the best left in the world". It was a heavy day to say the least, with the wave faces at least double to triple overhead and without safe access to the point, Josh would have to give it a miss and only stare longingly at this Indonesian piece of perfection, just as he longingly departed from the waves of Nusa Lembongan reef.

For the next two days we explored the tiny palm-fringed islands just inside Lombok's SW penninsula. The area is beautiful. Reminiscent of the Marquesas or the Hawaiin islands, with lush green hills and valleys and calm bays of torquoise water... and finally, after the madness of Bali, no tourists, anywhere. Just fishermen out working the reefs, and the odd pearl farm mixed-in.


Gili Gede and Nasra's Family
After hours of searching for an anchorage that was shallow enough to drop our hook, we settled in for our second night on Lombok in the lee of the small island of Gili Gede, where indigenous seafaring Bugis communities build the outrigger boats that are standard in the whole region. As soon as we started to anchor a young man named Nasra paddled out to greet us. We had heard that there was a half-built eco lodge on the island and sure enough he was the caretaker. Via our challenging language interchange we gathered that the place wasn't open, in fact wasn't even finished being built, and the owners were away. But Nasra and his wife lived in the nearby village and would be happy to cook dinner for us. Great! While we finished putting Bahati to rest for the night, unsuccessfully attempting to freedive the 70ft down to the anchor to check its placement, Nasra paddled back into the village to alert his wife that they would have guests for the evening.

Maria and Josh went ashore to explore the island before sunset. First stop was the eco-resort "Secret Island" - a very creative assembly of DIY treehouse-like bunagalows set on the surrounding hills. It was beautiful indeed, and quite cozy in its ramchackle form. It was the only tourist-related development around, just as we had heard, tourism in the area appeared to be pretty dead. We met Nasra's daughter walking through the grounds, and then made our way along the shore to the Bugis village nearby. As we walked by a cluster of huts woven from palm fronds, an old man sitting out front waved for us to come over. As we approached, he reached inside his little hut, past the weaving of Mecca hanging on the wall (the only decoration in the whole village), and extracted a matt which he rolled out gesturing for us to sit. For the next half-hour we talked and talked to the single-toothed old man as he smoked a large rolled cigarette. He didn't speak a word of English, and us not a word of Bhasa Indonesian, nevermind his local dialect. That didn't stop us... we talked about everything under the sun and the creases worn into his face from decades on this little island told volumes. He would smile and laugh and we would do the same. He showed us their huts, the outriggers they were building, and we watched the chickens peck around the dirt. As we said our goodbyes he bowed to each of us while touching his heart with one hand and holding our hand with the other. After leaving this old man both Maria and I were overwhelmed by a sense of humility after our brief view into these people's simple yet joyful lives.

While Maria and Josh were ashore, Nasra, his brother Jos, and their two friends paddled out to Bahati in one kayak. Nat (aka Captain Biscuits) was trying to take a nap, but awoke to the excited teenagers wanting a tour of the boat! Nat happy abliged and they bounced around Bahati taking hundreds of pictures with their friend's camera phone, posing in every corner of the vessel, giddily asking what every little thing on the boat was. Then each of them needed a picture taken with the captain, giggling the entire time. Then as the afternoon call-to-prayer was sounded they paddled in, reminding us that dinner was at 7. We made our way ashore and Nasra's wife, in her hijab, cooked up a storm of whole fish in curry, rice, and local spinach in garlic. Yum!!! We devouered the meal in record time washing it down with cold Bintangs (which they chilled that evening after firing up the local generator).

The next morning we raised the anchor and made a course out of these magical islands towards another cluster of smaller islands off Lombok's northwest coast. As we were leaving Nasra's brother, Jos, paddled out to say his enthousiastic good-bye and urge us to please come back soon. "I am Jos! You are Josh! We are brothers! When you come back?!" After that sweet send-off we had another beautiful sail north, but still catching no fish. Never fear! We now felt secure that the local fishermen knew how to find what eluded us!


Dinner with Serannity and Nordic and other boatie updates!
Our French Canadian friends on s/v NORDIC, also sailing around the world, who we met on Isabella in the Galapagos islands three years ago and have remained in close contact with ever since, were anchored in a bay on Lombok's NW coast, so we pulled in there and picked up a nearby mooring. As we were approaching, to our great shock and excitement, we heard two boats talking on the VHF radio (which only works at close range), and recognized one of them as Nat and Betsy's old friends, Lew and Ann Tucker aboard SERANNITY. We had last seen them two years ago as they left Opua, New Zealand heading north. What a wonderful surprise!!! And such is the serendipitous delight of long-distance cruising! We hailed them on the radio and it turned out they were only about five miles away in the next bay and were heading in the opposite direction to Bali the next day. They kindly hustled over to our bay and the three boats of old friends converged aboard Serannity for a night of dinner and drinks. What a fabulous reunion!!! Only if Betsy had been here to see them all....!!! But we called her in Maine on the satellite phone so she could share in the fun catching her on her way to visit the Bowdoin College Childcare Center (shades of her days at the Harvard Yard Childcare Center lo these many years ago!) in Brunswick where she is now working as a substitute teacher. Our hope is that we will all re-une again in Malaysia or Thailand in December when Betsy plans to be back aboard!


Gili Aer
The next morning we popped across to bay to the tiny island of Gili Aer, where we have been for the last three days, basking in the sun, snorkeling, and exploring this small paradisical coral atoll by foot (there are no cars or motorbikes here, only horse-drawn carriages). Not much to say about that other then, ahhhhhhhhhhh...... This IS the good life.....!! (As long as we can avoid the earthquakes and resulting tsunamis!!)

It has been great, as always, to reconnect with old sailor friends and find new ones. We have had fun getting to know Jason and Laurel aboard MONKEY'S BUSINESS who have been here at Gili Aer even longer than we have....more than a week! Jason kite surfs off the beach and Laurel sits and reads...it's a good life! True to form Jason let us have some of his outboard fuel and we shared waypoints and e-mail addresses to help them on their way. We are also excited that EMPIRE, our Norwegian friends, Eivind, Heidi, and young Eirik, are on their way here from Kupang where they cleared through customs and immigration yesterday. We got a cell-phone call from our friend, Napa, the Kupang agent who was so helpful when we checked-in at Kupang a month ago, saying: "Hello Brother Nat! I have your friends on EMPIRE here with me! And say hello to Mum (Betsy) and Sister (Georgina)! Selamat Tinggal! Selamat Tidur!" We have plans to meet the boys on ALPHERATZ, Greg, Jonathon and crew, from Blue Hill and Halifax for dinner in Bali on the 6th, the day before they leave to cross the Indian Ocean. Our friends, Andy and Daneen, aboard ROSE from Un-Alaska, Alaska are already in Cocos Keeling and getting ready to head for Mauritius as are Seth and Ellen, our Maine buddies who left the same time we did in '06 from So Freeport, aboard HERETIC, also from Blue Hill. And we hear from Katie and Jim aboard ASYLUM that is all is well in Vanuatu after Jim's scarey brush with a bad gallbladder attack that resulted in a quick plane ride to see a Brisbane surgeon and back!

More soon!
Bahati's Happy Crew
Captain Biscuits and happily visiting crew Josh and Maria!